moectech - Laptop Initiative

Laptop Initiative - Kayser Hall 224

Facilitators: Paul Lindgren (Westside) Pam Krambeck (ESU #3)
Description: This session is targeted at professionals who are using laptops extensively OR are
considering wide-spread use of laptops in their district.

Helpful Links:

Talking Points & Notes:

Of the districts represented, many are in the stages of planning and gathering information and only one (Westside) has a student laptop program. Almost all had a teacher laptop program.

3 issues to consider with laptops

Freedom vs control
Responsibility—shared risk, what do we cover, what is the individual’s responsibility
Keep them engaged, what is the education

Notes form Westside:

8th grade rollout at Westside this year (2009): 2 apple certified techs, image on machines
5 years of laptop 1-2-1 in grades 9-12, student shared drive—have a network home 500 meg or gig per student, intended for backing up school work, not music or pictures
1 gig drive $7 sold at school at bookstore
one-touch online back-up to preserve network traffic
Only synch documents

Lease vs buy

3-year leases are the most cost effective
4th year of a lease is the most expensive
OPS is purchasing machines rather than lease

Support:

Middle school has 2 technicians (1-12 month, 1-10 month) techs, 1 building tech support person, machines on carts for seventh graders—they are not involved in the 1-2-1 a this time
It is worth have a certified technician to make your own repairs for “easy stuff” and the district is paid for the certified repairs
Students use to get a laptops while repair was being made—now they get the same machine back after repairs and they don’t “swap out” the machine. This seems to create an ownership of the machine
User reaction to “crash” –they start using the synch and backing up
Orientation— for all students
Saving a document—save to either the server or the hard drive—most save locally

Web Filtering:

At home at school—Deep Nines client to filter in the building, does not incorporate with open directory, filters all traffic http proxy (not https), not fully filtered, looking at other solutions now, goes through filtering even at home
Web filtering is something that needs to be considered and addressed before a laptop program is undertaken

Cost:

3 year lease is most popular
Freshman—new machine—follows them through high school
Senior machine—moves to middle school?
Keep same laptop for the 3 year cycle (NOW—learned by doing other things)
Everyone checks in—summer school sets are used
Machines are reimaged every summer
Insurance, cooperative loss program, opt in or out $35—no official insurance policy that gets bought, if they participate ($100 and under they are responsible for), over $100 70% from cooperative , 30% is individual’s responsibility
Fee system—some use this and charge a $35/$50 usage fee but concern was voiced over school fees and policies against them
First year there were issues with some machines logic boards, since then, the machines have held up fairly well
Battery issues when you get past 300 cycles on the batteries –year 3 is the issue

Staff Laptop Use:

Westside: all staff, 8-12 students, all staff members machines are fully covered,
Millard: All staff, replace battery no charge to user, policy signed, gross negligence (very few), Computrace for when laptop is stolen, $15 per laptop, per year on 2000 machines, can destroy data (user doesn’t log onto internet it is a problem), software piece that is imbedded, car left in car→stolen, insurance policy—if can’t find then $1000 replacement, docs PC’s, macs--no
Ralston: all staff have laptops—pay for everything, not more than 3 stolen
Elkhorn: all staff have laptops—struggling with damage (on site they are covered), off site they are responsible for first $250, instance where spilled coffee, screen damage (held a fundraiser), Window machines have 3-year accidental coverage, macs don’t have an accidental coverage
PLV: All certified staff have HP laptops, new this year
Bennington—all but 3 have laptops (teacher choice 3 went with desktop)
In place of desktops in the classroom—depends on user
OPS—most have laptops (some at elementary do not), elementary—macs, secondary is win

Support:

Westside: Two certified techs, Support person in each building
Ralston: One covers all elementary and middle school, one takes care of networking at the high school—(more labs)

Mini Laptops:

OPS is going with HP mini laptop at MacMillan, in classroom 30 laptops that stay
Interest in these—consider keyboard size
Many run on Linux—consider another operating system support when adopting
Many are now running XP

Learning Management Systems:

Learning management systems are a piece to have in place with laptop programs
Some are using myelearning, others Moodle, Westside has BlackBoard in place long before the laptop program.

Other considerations:

Carts for activities
Timelines (double them, consider time to unbox, box storage, tagging, inventory, imaging, etc.)
Re-imaging of student machines each summer, staff no—they take home
Over plan wireless
e-mail for every student—First Class has controls
Personal Laptops: some allow, some don’t→ against district policy to put on network
Network: open, vs password protected, authenticate with account, security networks
Millard—password protected,
Westside—keeps things open, etc.